


snark and sap

by ms bricolage (onefootforward)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, why, why can't i tag my fictional delinquent kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-03 22:35:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2890472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onefootforward/pseuds/ms%20bricolage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raven looks back as Clarke let’s both kids run off, a small and likely entirely unconscious smile on her face. Clarke, clinical, hard edges, she-of-the-motivational-speeches-and-terrible-humour, is a gigantic pushover with physical contact.</p><p>Raven grins, “This is so awesome,”</p><p>Bellamy laughs, “I know.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	snark and sap

**Author's Note:**

> i am posting a lot tonight sORRY NOT SORRY
> 
> i hope y’all can appreciate that i drank 710 mL of 7up to write this, because it got late, and my body wanted sugar, even though pop is super gross and my point is, these two fuckers are going to be the reason i die an early death. 
> 
> this goes to all of you awesome little shits who read my tags and actually pester me for random snips of dialogue that i totally do not have saved up on my onedrive for easy access, no way.  
> >> you can’t prove it  
> >> fight me
> 
> inspired partially by my endless desire to have the delinquents actually fleshed out, and partially by that promo picture of the hUG OKAY WHO ELSE IS DYING.

She’s in the middle of a conversation the first time it happens, halfway between  _that’s fucking ridiculous_  and  _please stop thinking that bravery equals recklessness_  and three inches deep in a leg wound. Tye, the fortunate recipient of her grievances, only stares at her with wide eyes and a bloody lip, which is good, since Clarke is actively trying to  _ignore_  the behemoth weight draped across her back.

“– and just because Lyre was egging you on,” she grumbles, twisting the booze-soaked rage over the line of blood, just once more, “does not mean you have to  _listen_  to him.”

This snaps his attention back to her, “He wasn’t doin’ anything, it isn’t his fault!”

Clarke sighs, “That’s what you  _always_  say, but Lyre is present at nearly every one of these stupid – ”

The weight mumbles something from where it’s nudged into her shoulder. Clarke elbows it as she hoists Tye’s leg up on a nearby stump – there isn’t a lot to work with in the middle of the forest, which is where they find themselves more often than not nowadays.

“ _What_ ,” she hisses, because fuck, she’s in the middle of something, she doesn’t have the  _time_  –

“Tye likes Lyre,” it mutters, and Clarke spares exactly two seconds to send him a raised eyebrow and a clear message of  _so?_

“And,” Bellamy mumbles, his jaw forcibly planted between the crook of her neck and her shoulder, “he’s showing off.”

She whips her head back to the kid in front of her, who, yeah, okay, is blushing – a flush that shoots up his neck and right to the tips of his ears. It’s fucking adorable, and he’s a god damn idiot.

“I would think,” she says primly, “that Lyre would like you better if you were _alive_. And possibly with all your limbs attached.”

He grumbles something and Clarke takes the chance to elbow Bellamy again, who’s still leaning against her back, head crashed into hers and arms stretched down to the front of her thighs. It isn’t anything sexual, honestly it’s a lot more like having a breathing blanket reaching from the base of her skull to the middle of her calves, hot points of contact on a cold day, so she doesn’t feel bad about digging an arm into his stomach and gesturing to her sutra kit.

He hands it to her without a word, barely jostling them from their current position, and she turns her attention back to Tye’s leg.

The wound isn’t terrible, certainly not as bad as the ones from their first week here. Bellamy had gone to negotiate a temporary truce with a clan far too fond of rigged traps randomly scattered throughout the forest, and ended up with an ear piercing and three different types of bear traps. The whole thing had been a lot funnier when none of them had actually  _seen_  the ten-foot monstrosities that languidly haunted the nearby area.

She pours a little of the alcohol over her hands again, because well, basic hygiene – it isn’t like they’ve had gloves since the last government outpost raid – and Bellamy wordlessly takes the bottle from her when she’s done. She shifts in place until she’s got Tye’s leg near enough to work on, and then says, “Why don’t you just ask him out?”

Tye stammers, “ _What_? No, I can’t – that would be. Uhm. Nope.”

She doesn’t look up from what she’s doing – a fucking fine ass job on yet another foolish and completely preventable injury, thank you very much, but she hears Bellamy chuckle in her ear.

"Why not?"

Tye groans a little, but Clarke’s in the middle of pulling flaps of skin together so. She’s going to assume he’s in pain, which isn’t  _great_ , but honestly, he’s being dumb and sort of deserves it.

"I don’t think he. Well, I don’t  _know_  if he ah, would go for it?”

Clarke frowns and adjusts her grip enough so that she can look up. “Tye,” she says, patiently, because she’s going to be patient about this, “no one  _knows_. You’ve got to ask.”

Bellamy grins against her neck. Tye matches Clarke’s expression, although his face is still bright red. Mind you, it  _is_  cold out, maybe he’s actually starting to show signs of frostbite, or  _shit_ , what about hypothermia, she’s been prepared for it but no one has actually looked too bad, not yet –

"He doesn’t like me  _back_ ,” he mumbles, and Clarke turns back to the injury.

She stabs three more sutras in and says nothing. By the time she’s up to his kneecap, Bellamy is leaning fully into her shoulder and staring at Tye over it – she can tell because his breath is hot against her ear, and a god damn distraction.

"Look," she says finally, pulling the final stitch in tight, "you are smart and creative and have a big heart," she ties a quick knot, "and Lyre is your best friend."

"Yeah,"

"It’s better to be honest. And also, you need to stop showing off, because if I have to sow you up one more time because of shit like this, I am going to put you on latrine duty for a  _month_ , do you hear me?” She threatens, still not looking at him.

"Dude," Bellamy grumbles, still on her shoulder, "Lyre definitely likes you. Ask him to that uh, festival of trees shindig that we’re being dragged to."

"Hey, that’s a  _peace_  mission –”

"They just want Monty’s fruit shit, ever since he spiked the last event words gotten around –"

"Well so what it’s still going to smooth things over, especially since last time you  _shot_  the diplomat.”

"What. No, that was a misunderstanding."

"Misunderstanding my  _ass_  –”

"Okay!!" Tye squeaks, his face  _still_  bright red and Clarke’s actually starting to worry, “I’ll ask him. Right.”

Clarke huffs, “Good.”

"God," Tye mutters, and drags his leg out from where Clarke’s had it propped, "you two are  _so_  embarrassing.”

Clarke scowls and Bellamy finally stands up, taking his full weight off Clarke and causing her to pitch forward a bit. She saves herself by striding forward and ruffling Tye’s hair, a frown still on her face.

"You are  _so dumb_ ,” she says.

Tye grins, “Love you too,” and then bounds off before she can reply.

Bellamy lets out a sharp laugh, but by the time Clarke spins around to scowl at him he’s walking away, trailing after Tye at a slow enough pace to give him the chance to flee. He doesn’t, so Clarke just gathers up her supplies and walks back to camp through the opposite trail.

And like, whatever. It isn’t a big deal. It isn’t even a  _deal_ , she doesn’t think about it at  _all_ , okay.

.

.

.

The next time marks a coincidence.

Clarke stumbles her way around camp first thing in the morning – she’s a shit morning person, she  _knows_ , but that doesn’t mean she can just  _not_  get up with the sun, she’s got things to do, people to yell at, the usual – and somehow manages to walk straight into Raven. Raven, who is a fabulous person, if you ignore that one time she used Clarke’s just-woken vulnerability to con her into a whole day of labour classes, just snickers and sends her over to the camp fire, dishes her out breakfast then abandons her to one of the log pieces that they all  _call_  chairs but are honestly just uhm, well, stumps of wood.

Raven is fantastic because she makes breakfast and can be quick witted in the morning and rarely takes advantage of this fact. Bellamy, who is  _also_  a morning person,  _curse_  him, is less fantastic, because he takes pleasure in fucking around with Clarke.

He drags his stump over just as she finishes her meal, takes the bowl out of her hands and all but careens into her personal space. If Clarke wasn’t so exhausted she’d be annoyed, but as it stands she’s just…confused.

Confused and growing vastly more so, she realizes, as Bellamy gets close enough so that their shoulders are brushing, then goes on to eat his breakfast in complete silence. Which…well, okay, it’s hard to talk and effectively consume food at the same time, but if there was ever a person to try and monologue and feed himself, it’d be Bellamy.

After a few more moments of this she just shrugs to herself and makes some indication of getting up, gets so far as a slight tensing in her muscles before Bellamy’s gaze slides towards her, every ounce of his expression trained into something she is  _way_  too tired to see.

“What,” she says, more out of exasperation than real honest curiosity.

He takes another bite and doesn’t reply, doesn’t do anything really other than turn his leg out enough so that it’s pressed against Clarke’s.

And – okay, in her defense, she’s  _so shitty_  at mornings. Like, so bad. She tries really hard not to be, but honestly, unless they are  _literally_  being attacked first thing, she’s not entirely functional.

Anyway, that’s her excuse – which she is absolutely sticking to,  _Raven don’t think I don’t notice your innuendo eyebrow okay_  – for her next move, which is to purse her lips a little and then promptly give in to the weirdness-that-isn’t-all-that-weird-but-maybe-should-be.

“ _Fine_ ,” she mutters, and then curls up onto Bellamy’s shoulder. She keeps her arms folded in her lap but mostly because she’s too lazy to move them. Bellamy grunts out some noise that she’s fairly certain is approval, and continues to eat.

By the time any of the other kids manage to trickle out of their respective sleeping areas, eyes sliding shut at the early rise of the sun, Clarke is pressed firmly against Bellamy’s chest, mostly passed out and completely fucking happy to do so. She doesn’t even have the awareness to think about how it looks until Octavia bounds into her peripheral, bright eyed and grinning like a lunatic.

Clarke only has a brief second to think,  _seriously,_   _fuck morning people_ , before O is hollering, “ _Dog pile_!” and then half the camp has crawled in her lap, has hurdled on top of her and Bellamy, and is  _breaking her fucking neck, Silver that is_ not _a good landing spot._

Eventually she falls off her log, takes both the Blakes with her, and resigns herself to the smorgasbord of people laying on what’s likely a highly unsanitary forest floor. The camp spends half of the morning being useless and lazy and swapping stories instead of working, sharing body heat and gentle tugs, but Clarke has Bellamy’s arm stretched around her, Octavia’s head pooled in her lap and at least three separate hands curled around hers, and it’s nice and cozy and she wouldn’t trade it for the world.

.

.

.

The third time makes it a pattern.

She’s pacing in her tent, which is great because it means she can actually  _use_  those roll-out fabric sets that they’ve deemed to be bed material, when Bellamy strides in, face grim. Her first reaction is  _fuck-off_ , then she takes in his expression and it quickly transforms into  _what the fuck_.

"Who’s hurt?" She asks, because, well, common sense.

Bellamy kind of frowns and doesn’t say anything. Well, doesn’t say anything  _useful_ , instead goes, “What’s got your panties in a bunch?”

Clarke doesn’t even react to this because it’s Bellamy, all snark, no snap. “What,” she says, “who says they are.”

He raises an eyebrow and crosses his arms, and Clarke resumes pacing. He’d tell her straight away if she was actually needed.

"Clarke,"

She reaches one end, turns quick and stalks over to the other.

"Princess."

It’s a fucking  _shame_  that these tents are so small – they have to be because otherwise it’d be a waste of energy to carry them around, especially since that seems to be the only thing that works for them, nomads until winter at least. Makes for shit shelter though.

"Hey!" he barks, and Clarke spins on her heel.

“ _What_ ,” she snaps.

He walks closer, nudges her with his shoulder, “Tell me.”

"It’s not –”

“ _Tell_  me.”

She stops moving, only so that she can turn the full force of her glare on him, “The Ark contacted us,” she grumbles.

His eyes widen, “Messenger?”

She nods. “Their tech is really improving. Monty intercepted it this morning.”

It’s a  _thing_ , they keep in touch because the Ark has supplies still that they just don’t, and because they’re willing to let Raven and Monty fuck around with it out of a show of goodwill. Clarke  _knows_  this is because of her mother, because her mother is fucking around with the new chancellor and lets them keep the good supplies whenever their paths cross, and it makes Clarke feel so  _dirty_ , like she’s using her position – which, she is. She knows she is. She can’t just  _not_  though, because last week alone Raven managed to drum up these micro-intercoms which means that scouting missions just became ten times safer, and that’s too good to pass up, no matter how it –

Bellamy’s hands drop heavily on her shoulders, heavy enough to force her into a crouch on her bed-roll. When she just looks up at him, face blank, he stares right back.

"Sit." He commands.

Clarke huffs, “Oh, he of the monosyllable tone –”

She’s cut off though, totally out of her control, because Bellamy goes and  _flops_  over top of her, the two of them tumbling into her bed with barely a warning.

When she manages to reorient herself she’s on her back, most of her upper body stretched across the bunch of blankets she hadn’t pulled fully out yet, and Bellamy lays directly on top of her, his entire body practically  _smothering_  hers. She grunts, air pushed out of her chest, and struggles a little.

"You  _asswipe_ , get off,”

"Stop thinking about your mother," he counters, and turns into her a little when she manages to extract an arm, "c’mon. Just relax a little."

"I  _am_  relaxed,” she replies, even though she knows it comes out more furious than anything else.

“You’re  _not_ ,” he counters, and drops his head so it’s buried in the fabric. Clarke knows this is her cue, but she can’t actually  _calm_  the buzzing under her skin, despite the grudging comfort that Bellamy brings.

Well, Bellamy is also  _crushing her spleen_ , which isn’t helping – she points out as much, which gets him to move, not enough for her to be tempted to get up and start pacing again, but enough so that she knows that it’s her choice to remain under a pissed-off human-straight jacket, which is actually rather soothing. So is her newly-emancipated internal organ, and she just. She stops moving.

She can’t stop the thinking though – futilely stares up at the ceiling of the tent, wondering about bug nests and potential indoor hives. Bellamy breaths steadily, in and out, in and out, and she asks,

“Am I bad person?”

Clarke can feel him shuffling around and turns her head to where she thinks his landed. Sure enough she catches wide brown eyes and a gentle frown – that’s all Bellamy is, different shades of disapproval.

“Depends,” he tries, and  _fuck_  his face is close, “what do you mean?”

She blows out a long breath, enough so that his frown tempers into steady annoyance. It makes her feel better, or at least it makes the lump in her throat dissolve enough to say, “I hate that they can find us. I know some of the kids still have parents there and that we need to trail back every so often, and we can’t just drop off the grid entirely because those stupid robotic drones deliver messages to them as well, but I – I  _hate_  it.”

It’s silent for a little while, long enough for Clarke to go  _fuck it_  and bring up her free hand until it tangles in Bellamy’s hair. This whole fucking situation is another testament to how tactile he is, a soft hand here, a playful shove there, so whatever. She’s going with it.

She doesn’t realize her eyes drift shut until a voice jilts them open, Bellamy shifting just enough so that he’s only  _mostly_  smothering Clarke, one leg draped over both of hers, his chest slanted far enough away that he manages to thread an arm under her back to hold her where she is. She blinks slowly and stares and stares, until he gets the message.

“I said,” he repeats, “that hating your mother doesn’t make you a bad person.”

“Oh,”

“You’re – ” he cuts off and grumbles something under his breath quick, raising his gaze to hers, “we’re your family. Just because she gave birth to you doesn’t excuse what she’s done after that.”

“God,” she replies, “you’re  _such_  a sap.”

“ _Princess_ , I swear – ”

She uses the hand that’s carded through his hair to give a sharp tug, enough to cut him off. They stare at each for a few loaded moments, Clarke resuming her gentle ebb and flow of fingers threading through his hair – an apology, slight though it is.

“Hey,” she says, when it seems like he’s given up on waiting for a reply, just because she  _can_ , “you are my family. The camp  _is_  my family.”

“Damn straight.”

She closes her eyes, “Doesn’t make you any less of an emotional den mother though,”

He huffs, a strangled sound that could either mean he’s put-out, or secretly pleased. Clarke’s betting on a bit of both – Bellamy is the  _worst_  for being over protective and grumpy about it, so he’s good at blending the two together.

She falls asleep like that, fully clothed and on top of the blankets, her forehead pressed to Bellamy’s, matching him, breath for breath, life for life.

And — if this is a pattern, she’s definitely not going to fight it.

.

.

.

(“She  _likes_  it,”

“Dude, you know that sounds creepy.”

“No, no, look,” he points, which is kind of  _dumb_  because it’s not like Clarke is going to perform on demand, “she keeps to herself, right, ridiculously self-contained?”

Raven nods, slowly though, so Bellamy knows that she thinks he’s absurd, “Right.”

“But that’s just, I don’t know, defense-mechanism, some dumb shit like that.”

“ _Dumb shit like that_ , Bellamy Blake do you even hear yourself?”

He nods back to the scene in front of them – Clarke’s chewing out some kid for not coming back to camp on time, but only because Bellamy’s version of a stern lecture tends to involve guns. Clarke’s was purely threats. Like, good threats, put the fear of the Ark in you threats, threats which she followed through on, but at least it wasn’t outwardly violent.

“The kids cottoned on,” he’s saying, and then points to Jenny, the friend of the aforementioned little shit in front of them.

And – it’s the fucking craziest thing. Raven watches as Jenny gradually gets herself into a position where she’s all but lodged under Clarke’s arm, not even saying anything, and Clarke is  _letting_ her. Not just that, but everything about her body posture changes, grows soft and relaxed and –

“Oh my god,” Raven mutters, and then gleefully repeats herself, “oh my  _god_ ,”

“I know,”

“That’s so  _great_. Oh,” Raven turns to him, “she can never know.”

Bellamy nods, wisely. “She’s too self-conscious when she’s stressed,”

Raven shoots him a  _look_ , “You two are always stressed.”

“My point.”

It’s – true, okay. Whatever. Raven looks back as Clarke let’s both kids run off, a small and likely entirely unconscious smile on her face. Clarke, clinical, hard edges, she-of-the-motivational-speeches-and-terrible-humour, is a gigantic _pushover_  with physical contact.

Raven grins, “This is  _so awesome_ ,”

Bellamy laughs, “I  _know_.”)


End file.
